D.C. Notebook: Utah ranks seventh in Romney's fundraising

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Mitt Romney continues to suck up contributions from Utahns, though the state isn't in the top five states where the Republican nominee-in-waiting is doing his best fundraising.

As of his last report, Romney had pulled $3.9 million from Utah as opposed to the $577,645 that President Barack Obama has garnered.

Romney's haul from the Beehive State is impressive  though he raised $5.4 million in 2008  but the number puts Utah seventh on Romney's top contributing states.

Regrets? • Before the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the Affordable Care Act, Sen. Orrin Hatch's office was trumpeting that the Utah Republican would be attending the reading of the decision at the invitation of Chief Justice John Roberts.

Well, Roberts, as it turns out, sided with the court's liberals to keep the individual mandate in place and has now become a villain of sorts to conservatives.

Here's betting Hatch wishes he hadn't noted he was Roberts' guest.

Lee backs Hatch, finally • Sen. Mike Lee sat on his hands during Hatch's fight to win the Republican nomination, and Lee's chief of staff, Spencer Stokes, even told reporters earlier this year that he thought Hatch would lose.

Stokes was way off.

Hatch trounced former state Sen. Dan Liljenquist in the Utah primary. The next day Lee said he was ready to support his Senate colleague, though he couched it as an endorsement for the entire Republican slate.

"Congratulations to all of Utah's Republican nominees," Lee said. "Now that the field is set, I am pleased to endorse and support Sen. Orrin Hatch in the Senate race and Rep. Rob Bishop, Rep. Jason Chaffetz, [Saratoga Springs] Mayor Mia Love and Chris Stewart in their respective House races. I look forward to working with each of them in Congress on issues critical to moving Utah and our great nation forward."

Better late, than never • Polls showed Hatch would easily walk to victory in the Utah primary and he pulled in up quite a bit of campaign cash in the final days of his push. In fact, 12 donors kicked in of $13,000 on June 26, the day of the primary.

In politics, timing is everything.

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Burr and Canham report from Washington, D.C. They can be reached at tburr@sltrib.com or mcanham@sltrib.com or via Twitter @thomaswburr or @mattcanham.

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